Going over to where Rowena was still standing in front of the telewindow, he said, "I'll bet you know no end of stories about the doings of the knights of the Table Round."
"La! Sir Thomas. Ever I saw day of my life I have heard naught else in the court of my father."
"Tell me," Mallory said, "how did this Round Table business begin? Or, better yet, how did the Grail business begin? We can take up the Round Table business later on."
She thought for a moment. Then, "List, fair sir, and I will say ye: At the vigil of Pentecost, when all the fellowship of the Round Table were come unto Camelot and there heard their service, and the tables were set ready to the meat, right so entered into the hall a full fair gentlewoman on horseback, that had ridden full fast, for her horse was all besweated. Then she there alit, and came before the king and saluted him; and he said: Damosel, God thee bless. Sir, said she, for God's sake say me where Sir Launcelot is. Yonder ye may see him, said the king. Then she went unto Launcelot and said: Sir Launcelot, I salute you on King Pelles' behalf, and I require you to come on with me hereby into a forest. Then Sir Launcelot asked her with whom she dwelled. I dwell, said she, with King Pelles. What will ye with me? said Launcelot. Ye shall know, said she, when ye—"
"That'll do for now," Mallory interrupted. "We'll come back to it as soon as I get stocked up on paper and ink. Scheherazade," he added.
"Scheherazade, Sir Thomas? I wot not—"
He leaned down and kissed her. "There's no need for you to wot," he said. Probably, he reflected, he would have to do a certain amount of research in order to record the happenings that had ensued his and Rowena's departure, and undoubtedly said research would result ironically in the recording of the true visits of Sirs Galahad and Launcelot to the chamber of the Sangraal—the "time-slots" on which he and Perfidion had gambled and lost their shirts. The main body of the work, however, had been deposited virtually on his lap, and its style and flavor had been arbitrarily determined. Moreover, contrary to what history would later maintain, the job would not be done in prison, but right here in the "castle of Yore" with Rowena sitting—and dictating—beside him. As for the impossibility of giving a sixth-century damosel as his major source, that could be avoided—as in one sense it already had been—my making frequent allusions to imaginary French sources. And as for the main obstacle to the endeavor—his twenty-second century cynicism—that had been obviated during his encounter with Sir Galahad.
The book wouldn't be published till 1485, but just the same, he was keen to get started on it. Writing it should be fun. Which reminded him: "I know we haven't known each other very long in one sense, Rowena," he said, "but in another, we've known each other for almost nine hundred years. Will you marry me?"
She blinked once. Then her plum-blue eyes showed how truly blue they could become and she threw her arms around his gorget. "Wit ye well, Sir Thomas," said she, "that there is nothing in the world but I would lever do than be thy bride!"
